Ranmaru: Doubts in Humanity, and Humanity in Doubts (Ranmaru Character Analysis)
Ranmaru is a character who is already talked about lots in the community so I am not too sure how much I can add to the discussion, but I am sure gonna try.
Ranmaru's character is one that slowly doubts his humanity more and more as the chapter goes on, but even with that he shows an aspect of humanity like all the dummies do. He shows it though his doubts, and his doubt in his own humanity is one major component of that.
His doubts start off small when we first meet him, not being very confident in his first conversations, and during the obstructor fight he is surprised when his plan ends up working out, and this lack of confidence continues throughout the chapter. When first entering the discussion room Ranmaru asks Sara an important question, he asks
however anyone who has played the game can tell you that this mentality doesn't last for long, because by the time the truth of the consent form is revealed, Ranmaru IS willing to kill. He even says as much
So what changed? Why is Ranmaru now willing to kill? I'd argue it's because he has had doubts placed in him, since the scene in the discussion room played out it has been proven to Ranmaru that he IS in fact a doll, and he's become aware of the time limit placed on him through his battery and saw Kurumada get heavily injured, causing him to realise he doesn’t want to die.
Beyond that he also has a reason now, a goal, right before the fight with Maple she tells Sara and Ranmaru about the final round rule and Ranmaru finds out that there is a way he can leave alongside Sara, Ranmaru makes it clear that when he is with Sara, he feels more and more of a strive to live,
This moment shows just how much of Ranmaru’s own self value is tied to Sara. Her power to inspire is now put into a negative context, by inspiring Ranmaru, who at first didn’t even care for life, (shown in his victim video,) to want to live, it pushed him into a corner where there is only one way out. A way marked with murder.
It recontextualises all the previous moments in the game where it was up to Sara to inspire the others like with Kanna or Nao or during the second Main Game by showing how it can just as much affect someone in a much more negative way. In the way Sara can inspire Nao to “overcome any difficulty” she can just as much push someone like Ranmaru into a situation where this want to live can lead to the worst scenario.
and this will to live is shown even before this moment.
When Kurumada is injured and attached to the charger he tells everyone that the charger would be better used to extend the lives of the dummies, Ranmaru ends up being the only one present who doesn't speak up against it no matter what, Anzu does it by default, Hayasaka takes her place if she is dead and if they both ended up dying its Hinako who steps in, but Ranmaru always stays silent, even literally having a dialogue box in the logic route where he just goes
in place of where Kanna spoke against Kurumada in her route, right after he tries to give up the charger. It makes sense considering just how close we are to the scene where he outright tells Sara he is afraid to die.
When he brings up the idea of winning Sara at first refutes the idea, claiming she wants everyone to escape together, and Ranmaru agrees... until his doubts start to set in again, asking
He cites that the more he is with Sara the more and more he wants to live and the more afraid he gets to die. Sara responds by telling him that everyone feels the same, he says that that's exactly why they need to win, claiming that while he can't imagine killing Sara, he is sure he could kill anyone else pleading Sara to win for him. From this point on Ranmaru's actions and arc are defined by Sara's response.
Starting with the Emotion route Sara tells Ranmaru that they are all allies and they overcome hardship together she makes it clear that Reko/Alice Qtaro Kanna and Gin would never do anything like that, and Ranmaru simply responds with
to Ranmaru Sara just compared him to all the humans, to her allies, and told him, while he is still struggling with his sense of humanity, that the HUMANS would never do what he tried to do, and Ranmaru takes it that way, claiming that he has no right to be her "friend", or "ally". while it was definitely not her intention as shown by the scene afterwards where she realizes that she was the one who gave him hope, even after he already gave up, and promises that while she can't make a choice like that, she won't abandon anyone, including Ranmaru, nonetheless the damage was already dealt and the effects of that are shown going forward...
We continue to see Ranmaru's doubts when he is faced with the choice to tag Kurumada, in the end however despite getting permission from Kurumada he decides what he is doing is wrong but that he lost the will to fight back against Midori, still unsure and doubting what he should do Hinako walks in to help.
After beating the charge collar game Ranmaru apologizes to everyone, or at least he tries to before Yabusame steps in and tells him that that's not what he says here, he then thanks everyone instead.
Later when interacting with Keiji's coffin and Sara thinks Keiji might have died Ranmaru is the one to step up in this route and tells Sara to not give up hope, while he isn't sure HOW Keiji got out, he is confident in his assertion that Keiji is alive, shutting down the doubts others have now instead of being the one who doubts.
The next major scene is Ranmaru's confrontation with Keiji. By calling Keiji through a fake announcement using his voice he confronts him in the classroom, hearing he killed Kurumada (or so he thought) he calls Keiji out for supposedly being a part of Asu-naro. He tells him Sara trusted him even signing the form for his sake, and in the end, he still brought Sara into the death game. Keiji calls him out for his jealousy claiming that he just wants to be the one to protect Sara, the one closest to her, even if he isn't in the right, but on this route Ranmaru denies it saying he doesn't matter in this and that he just wants to help Sara. Keiji responds that he can't be that person, and on this route only, specifically saying
Ranmaru responds in shocked silence, before saying of course he knows that and asking him to hand over Midori's head. Again, Ranmaru is told to his face that he is a doll and again he is told that he can't be close to Sara because of that, and he just accepts it now, feeding into that lack of humanity he felt and into his doubts from the previous time he was in the classroom, with Sara instead of Keiji.
Having all these doubts pile on him, from Keiji, from Sara, from himself, he shocks both Sara and Keiji and takes Keiji away from there, making sure to take the ID card in the process, he makes his way to the AI-ciever and attempts to upload the Joe AI into him. He claims that he couldn't be anything after all, as if this thing, this inherently inhuman thing, was the only value he could give to Sara at this point as a doll. After all, leading up to this point he already has been useful to Sara through the use of his steam spray upgrade part. Throughout the chapter again and again Ranmaru is told that he can’t be Sara’s ally, that he can’t be the one closest to her, all things that Joe is. Ranmaru, in an effort to provide value to Sara and actually become that person, he literally almost loses himself in that process by giving up his own consciousness and replacing it with Joe’s, someone who was Sara’s friend, someone who can be the closest to her.
During the pre-Banquet Sara can ask Ranmaru 3 things, 2 of them directly being related to him as a doll, being his battery and asking him if he wants to change upgrade parts, even afterwards Ranmaru asks a simple question.
No longer really valuing himself as a human, but talking about himself as though he is a tool.
If all the dummies survived and Yabusame starts singing their song Ranmaru will have a moment of true happiness not stuck to his usefulness, He doesn’t feel the need to take something on himself, but instead he just tries to sit back, listening to the others, and he genuinely enjoys it.
However, if all the dummies survived and Yabusame starts singing their song Ranmaru will have a moment of true happiness not stuck to his usefulness, He doesn’t feel the need to take something on himself, but instead he just tries to sit back, listening to the others, and he genuinely enjoys it.
and if Kurumada dies he claims
Resolving himself, and when entering the coffins he either goes in with no complaints or he is actively the one telling everyone to enter, specifically if Kurumada is the only dummy to die he will say
Before going into the Banquet however, I think it's time to talk about the other route.
In this route, when Ranmaru asks about winning, Sara instead of denying him like in the Emotion route, incites him into doing it himself, albeit implicitly. She tells Ranmaru SHE could never kill an ally causing Ranmaru to say he could do it himself, acting as a dark mirror to Sara's claim that they are all allies and that they wouldn't ever kill each other, she continues to tell Ranmaru that she wouldn't want to make Ranmaru do such a thing, but at this point Ranmaru has already decided to do it on his "own" so Sara isn't really fighting his remarks, finally Sara tells Ranmaru that she wouldn't want to hurt him, and that he is her precious friend. From the other route we could tell how much Ranmaru places value on his "friendship" and the same goes here, ultimately Sara breaks out of her mindset after Ranmaru brings up Keiji, but the damage is already done and Ranmaru got enough encouragement to start thinking of his plan.
In the way the Emotion Route shows the negative aspects of Sara inspiring everyone the Logic route shows the negative outcome of placing all this pressure on Sara through the overreliance on her, in a moment of weakness where she wants to be relieved of the pressure of her allies she ends up manipulating Ranmaru into taking that responsibility to have the two of them escape together on himself and relieve her of the pressure from her allies.
Until then though, the next time a big split between the routes happens is when Keiji is thought to be killed in his coffin. Instead of comforting Sara here Ranmaru does the exact opposite, despite Sou telling Sara he can't believe Keiji died Ranmaru doubts it, telling Sou that Keiji must be here since the shutter is still closed, using the same excuse he fought against in the other route, and he tells Sou to not give Sara half-hearted hope, Sou asks Ranmaru is he doesn't want Sara to have hope, which he denies before reluctantly agreeing to search for Keiji.
Finally, during his confrontation with Keiji, once he calls him out for wanting to be the one closest to Sara instead of denying it he asks his
which Keiji responds with by simply saying he can't, this time not even calling him a doll, or himself a murderer, just a
Ranmaru tells him to shut up and the rest of the interaction continues as normal with Sara being stunned alongside Keiji (although now Ranmaru claims he is going to save Keiji for last).
When Sara awakes Ranmaru shows up to reveal Kurumada "died" however this is proven false once Kurumada barges in and punches Ranmaru, he shouts at everyone to hurry to the lower floor locker room, and everyone does... Once entering Sara sees something horrible...
Yabusame dead, hanged by the ceiling trap in the room. Kurumada calls Ranmaru out for being the one who killed them, as he heard him over the transceiver saying something about winning, finally Ranmaru drops his facade and outright tells everyone he did it, much to the dismay of all the dummies, Midori enters and Ranmaru gives him back his ID card, asking him to get rid of the dummies in the process, which he obliges to by bringing Maple 2.0 to fight the survivors. After the fight, when Maple tries to kill Midori, Ranmaru will stun her causing her to fall and explode.
Seeing how Ranmaru changes makes so much sense when considering things from his point of view, waking up as a doll the first thing he sees is a video of him dying, and in it all he can say to himself is
something so tired, something so uncaring of whether you lived or died right until the end, having to see something like that coming from yourself would be so horrible to experience, and right after that he is told he can have another chance at life, as long as he can kill Sara. However when he meets Sara she ends up being someone who Ranmaru in his own words, makes him feel more and more like he wants to live, Ranmaru placed and his life's value on Sara but isn't able to live alongside her until Maple gives him an option that lets him escape alongside her and actually live. Sara's answer, whether it's encouragement or rejection, affects Ranmaru so deeply because of how much value he places on Sara.
It sort of plays into his whole speech about "making your own choices'', because despite his words of THAT being what defines a human, when he later takes off his hand, he still takes it as confirmation he isn't human, but even past that he continues to not make his own choices, now the choices are Sara's to make, or when he thinks about tagging Kurumada he never actually makes any choice, he just hesitates and doubts himself. Even going forward his confrontation with Keiji and what he does with the Joe AI is all for Sara's sake, not for his own, and him killing Yabusame, while partially for his own survival as called out by Hinako
is under the notion of protecting Sara and them BOTH escaping together. Even being instigated by Sara in the first place.
This lack of humanity continues into the Banquet where Ranmaru out right states it himself, even reveling in it on the Logic route.
However there is one moment in particular that shows a bit of growth on Ranmaru’s behalf, specifically in the emotion route.
When Anzu’s coffin is about to be picked Ranmaru will ask Midori to change his choice, telling him
and even when the other dummies express their doubts, saying that they could be picked instead, Ranmaru stands firm on his belief, not from a lack of value in himself, but from a belief Keiji’s coffin could be hit instead. Expanding his view from exclusively being about Sara to actually try and protect someone else, making good on his promise to not complain anymore and learning from the determination of the dummies.
Ultimately he still dies, dispelling Sara’s doubts in the emotion route, and asking for someone to save both Sara and Gin, or regretting not being able to get his “happy ending” he believed in during the logic route.
Ranmaru's character ends up so far removed from "humanity", but at the same time so different from where he started. Despite starting off by claiming to not be able to kill anyone, after seeing Kurumada injured, seeing his own battery was running out, and accepting he isn't human, Ranmaru brings up the idea and even possibly goes through with it, all due to his doubts of there being any other way of making it out with Sara.
Despite this however I still think Ranmaru is human, because it's human to doubt your worth to the others around you, it's human to want more from your life, and it's human to doubt in yourself. Even if time and time again Ranmaru is shown to physically be a doll, and even if he thinks that proves his inhumanity, Ranmaru is still human, and his doubts are the very thing that proves it.
In a way I love how Ranmaru’s relationship with Sara evolves into something romantic, from Maple's words to the symbolism of the red string of fate to the very concept of the final round rule. It acts as an opposite to Joe’s platonic relationship with Sara in how he tries to be who Joe was, being the one closest to her, who protects her, despite never being able to, but I also love it because love is commonly portrayed as the most human emotion, the highest form of connection with someone, or else the best thing that could happen to someone, a “happy ending”.
But that isn’t the case with YTTD and following this “happy ending” ends up sending Ranmaru into a downwards spiral, but in a way that also prove his humanity, because YTTD makes it clear again and again through characters like Q-taro, like Sou, and of course, like Ranmaru, since humanity isn’t just about the best aspects of someone, but also the worst.
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Wow I finally finished this lmao, took long enough. HOPEFULLY Mai and Hinako's will come out quicker but no more promises from me lol.
I was worried I wouldn't be able to add too much to the discussion around Ranmaru since he is obviously probably the MOST discussed when it comes to the Dummies or just 3-1 in general ngl (except Midori maybe lol) but I hope I managed to actually do it well in the end. If you did enjoy this though I would recommend checking out my posts on Anzu, Hayasaka, and Kuruamada too! I think I had more to say with them personally.
also you might have noticed a lack of me talking about the whole entire Yabusame death scene and the aftermath of that, I'm planning to make a whole post just about it because ITS SO GOOD ISTG and yet at the same time I see it so slandered, but I want to finish this series of posts first.
I also want to thank Crazy Sunshine for helping me with proof reading!!
and that's all! so thank you for reading!! hope you enjoyed!!!!
